Deep down, past the creepy post-apocalyptic conservative rhetoric like "we surround them" and "you are not alone," who is Glenn Beck? "A rodeo clown," he told the New York Times. Or maybe worse.
Blogger Amanda Terkel exacted revenge on the O'Reilly Factor for stalking and ambushing her on a desolate Virginia street: She got UPS to stop advertising, and a Ford spokesman to trash the show.
Being repeatedly exposed as factually incorrect or as a hypocrite doesn't seem to have hurt Bill O'Reilly's ratings. But a few more descriptions of him as a creepy stalker might do the trick.
The president fielded questions tonight about his daughters, the attorney general of New York and a kooky Chinese plan for an international currency. Anything on the nitty-gritty of his trillion-dollar bank bailout? Nope.
Yes, the husband of a Fox News anchor is advising and assisting Sarah Palin. But it's not like he's getting paid. The elite Scientologist just likes helping the ladies.
When we characterized Meghan McCain's disastrous TV appearance on Rachel Maddow last night as a "pundit audition," we didn't know how right we were.
Fox News added an asterisk to this advertisement only to responsibly admit that its competitors have tiny penises:
Whoopi Goldberg's chat with Bill O'Reilly tonight was bizarre. O'Reilly told the black, female, comedian that he had risen from the "bottom rung" just like her. But that's not what angered her.
Here's a great clip from tonight's Daily Show, showing Bill O'Reilly condemning paparazzi as the "scum of the Earth" for privacy invasion, then dispatching his Fox News camera goons to people's homes.
After his chat tonight with Bill O'Reilly, Christopher Hitchens asked for a second date: "We've barely got our trousers off," he said. The hawkish former Trotskyite had certainly pushed O'Reilly's buttons.
Kathy Griffin may have shouted at a heckler, on CNN, "I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth," but it's just a "vulgarity" in the Times.
Like Rudolph Giuliani, the news crawl was great on 9/11 but was soon useless and despised. Now CNN is killing it, and hopefully Fox News will too, if the Simpsons mock them again.
Back in 1996, cable news was still innocent, and even an evil Republican genius like Roger Ailes had to make a pretense of political objectivity. So Fox News Channel was careful to seek a token "Liberal To Be Determined" to balance Sean Hannity when the conservative pundit helped anchor the network's debut. These days CNN, MSNBC and Fox all carry unabashedly slanted shows on their lineups, so Fox apparently feels no compunction about giving Hannity formal title to the show he's always had his way with: The host will go it alone following co-host Alan Colmes' previously-announced departure, two sources told the Times.
Shep Smith's on-air response to an email flame broke several rules for fighting effectively on the internet: Don't give attention to a troll; don't let your opponent know when he's gotten under your skin; don't defend when you could be attacking. As such, the Fox News host's mounting rage against his small-fry critic doesn't deliver the same satisfaction as his other recent smackdowns. An especially ill-advised tactic: Trying to convince emailer "Mr. Fuentes" with an argument about the plight of Smith's "lawn-care maintenance guy." Since, you know, Señor Fuentes will surely understand an economic argument if it's translated into gardening terms. Click the video icon to watch. [via Johnny Dollar]
Fox News would like you to get to know its angry shouting heads a little bit better. Perhaps you'd like to know what sort of pants Sean Hannity doesn't wear on camera? Or the worst of Greta Van Susteren's college grades? Or who Bill O'Reilly has beaten to death with his bare hands? The name of Shep Smith's favorite piano bar? As TVNewser discovered, you can answer a disconcertingly high percentage of these questions on the"Fun Facts" section of Fox News' new Facebook page. All the disturbing profiles are after the jump. (Actually, Shep's is more immaculate than disturbing, but then that's about what you'd expect from the anchor, right?)
Even moreso than the Times, Fox News can't seem to let go of trite and clichéd red state-blue state dichotomies, even in the face of Barack Obama's bountiful harvest of "red" electoral votes. Exhibit A: Bill O'Reilly warning Daily Show host Jon Stewart not to visit the "center-right" South on pain of death, and criticizing his "Greenwich Village... crew." We wouldn't be speaking in some kind of code here, would we Bill? And your viewers are used to you referring to them as a bunch of bloodthirsty animals? Ah right, they get the "joke." (Click the thumbnail to watch.)
For those wondering what you can expect in the lame duck months before Fox News Channel has an Obama presidency to complain about, wonder no longer. While some are dealing with the loss by going rogue, in this sterling clip from last night's The O'Reilly Factor, Dennis Miller and his friend 'Billy' have a good laugh over liberal women still jealous of Sarah Palin's "non-neurotic" Alaskan sex life. It harkens us back to the glory days of conservative talk radio, when Rush Limbaugh spent most of every day saying incredibly offensive things about Hillary. Click for the video.
It's not that Shep Smith has suddenly had a liberal change of heart. The Fox News Channel anchor was shouting about his ideological independence back in February. It's that Smith seems to have become more vigorous and visible lately about setting himself apart from conservative pundits like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. His Tuesday smackdown of a comedian who said the media was "in the tank" for Barack Obama followed recent defenses of the Democratic president-elect to Ralph Nader and Joe The Plumber, plus cutesy little digs at Hannity and O'Reilly. It's all after the jump.
As if life isn't depressing enough for Hillary Clinton right now, when everyone from the president elect on down seems to be giving her the cold shoulder, now the former Democratic presidential candidate has to contend with the warm, unfortunate embrace of Sarah Palin. Palin said in part two of Greta Van Susteren's interminable interview that Clinton broke the glass ceiling for her Republican vice presidential run. Then she remembered that Hillary lost, so she amended her statement to say Clinton just bloodied her head against the glass ceiling, apparently so a social conservative whose looks earned her outsized press attention could complain about the media's "double standard."
